Hrant Dink murder to be retried, but concerns remain

A decision last week in the murder case of Hrant
Dink will lead to a retrial, but Dink's supporters are still not satisfied.
The ruling on May 15 by Turkey's Supreme Court of Appeals in Ankara
acknowledged that there was a criminal conspiracy to murder the ethnic Armenian
journalist, but stopped short of opening the way to a deeper investigation into
potential involvement by Turkey's powerful institutions.

The Supreme Court reviewed a verdict by an Istanbul court, passed
on January 17, 2012, which was heavily criticized for failing to recognize Dink's
murder as an organized and deliberately planned crime, or that state agents
bore responsibility, at a minimum, for neglecting threats against the
journalist prior to his murder.

Dink, founder and former chief editor of the weekly
newspaper Agos, was murdered in front of his Istanbul office in January 2007. The suspects
were quickly arrested and put on trial, but the journalist's family and
friends--as well as human rights defenders--believed the masterminds were
protected by the state. Dink had received threats for a long time before he was
killed, and he had publicized those threats through his columns. Hate mail and
threatening calls to Agos were part of the newspaper's daily routine.

Supporters of the journalist from the independent Hrant
Dink's Friends Platform repeatedly pointed to evidence that government
officials, police, military personnel, and members of the National Intelligence
Agency (MIT) had played roles in the murder--at least, by neglecting their duty
to protect the journalist. Evidence presented in court showed that more than
one intelligence unit had been aware of the planning stage of Dink's murder but
had done nothing to prevent it. The defense also pointed out the triggerman and
his immediate associates were not sophisticated enough to organize the
professional hit that was Dink's assassination.

On Wednesday, while the Supreme Court acknowledged the
existence of a "criminal organization" behind the murder, it failed to recognize
that an "armed terrorist" group was responsible for masterminding it. The
distinction between the two formulations is crucial in Turkey's law; the latter
provides ground for the prosecution to treat the crime as a conspiracy that
could involve government officials. The former essentially downgrades the
murder to the stature of a regular crime. The investigation is therefore exempt
from going beyond the immediate killers of Hrant Dink to seeking the
commissioners of the murder among power structures.

The date for the retrial is yet to be determined. The
details of the Supreme Court ruling are as follows:

Ogün Samast, the convicted triggerman who had confessed to
the murder, had received 22 years and 10 months in prison (a relatively lighter
sentence since he was not an adult on the day of the murder and was tried by a
juvenile court in Istanbul) on July 25, 2011. The Supreme Court upheld this
sentence.

A second defendant, Yasin Hayal, who had confessed to arming
Samast and instructing him to kill Dink, had received the punishment of life
without the possibility of parole. The Supreme Court upheld this sentence but demanded
that Hayal also be tried for founding and leading the criminal organization
behind Dink's murder.

Back in January 2012, a third suspect, Osman Hayal (Yasin's
brother), was tried and acquitted of aiding the conspiracy to murder Dink. The
Supreme Court overturned his acquittal, saying that the investigation into his
alleged involvement had been insufficient. Dink's defense team claims that Osman
Hayal was with Samast on the day of the murder, based on security camera records.

Also in January 2012, a fourth suspect, Erhan Tuncel, a
police informant accused of involvement in the conspiracy to murder Dink, was
acquitted of the charge of being a leader of the armed terrorist organization behind
Dink's assassination. With the Supreme Court of Appeals' ruling that no such
organization existed, Tuncel will be retried on the lesser charge of being a
member of a criminal organization.

Three other defendants will be retried on similar charges as
Tuncel.

Dink family lawyer Fethiye Çetin told CPJ that justice
cannot reach the masterminds of the murder when the perpetrators are classified
as a "criminal organization" rather than an "armed terrorist organization." Any
group of persons that join together for the purpose of committing even a petty
crime may be considered a criminal organization under the Turkish legal system,
Çetin said. The term "terrorist organization" would invoke a different set of
legal articles that would allow the investigation to go deeper--or, in this case,
higher.

The Hrant Dink murder was "committed by an extremely well
organized and professional organization," Çetin said. The planning before,
during, and after the murder, including removal of the evidence from the scene,
shows that this was not the work of just another fanatical nationalist who one
day decided to kill a public figure, Çetin said, and the investigation must go
further to catch the culprits.

Özgür Öğret is a Turkish freelance journalist and CPJ’s Istanbul correspondent. He was lead researcher for the 2012 CPJ special report, "Turkey's Press Freedom Crisis."